Warped Tour Rocks Tweeter Center - on All Five Stages

MANSFIELD - It was chaos and pandemonium at the Tweeter Center when the annual punk festival Warped Tour invaded the area Thursday.

With five stages hosting over 60 bands, the Tweeter Center featured some of the biggest, yet little-known, bands from across the country. The bands seen on the tour are not the typical radio bands but do have a strong following that led to the sell-out show at Tweeter.

Don't be fooled by the crazy descriptions that make up many of the band bios. These new bands, in an effort to differentiate themselves in a media-obsessed society, call themselves nu-metal, post hardcore, and pop punk, among other things.

The only thing you need to know is that the bands playing the Warped Tour are punk, ska, and metal - as well as one medium-sized white rapper.
You can call the Warped Tour a festival because, unlike other shows that feature multiple bands in a day, it focuses on everything, not just the music. Ozzfest and Locobazooka do have some booths on Tweeter's walkways, but the main focus is always back to the main stage.

At the Warped Tour, the layout was somewhat different.

Four of the five stages were located close to each other in the back lot of Tweeter and featured hundreds of booths.

You could see nearly everything there, as eco-friendly groups, anti-smoking activists, underground record labels, movies and even the video game "Guiter Hero" all jockeyed for the crowd's attention.

The bands themselves were varied in their performances. Some looked as if they were playing because they either owed something to the Warped Tour or had to keep some sort of credibility with their fans by being at the show.

Coheed and Cambria and Killswitch Engage both played truncated sets that, while intense, left something to be desired in respects to connection to the crowd. They played their songs as if the crowd were listening to their CD.
However, while this was going on, other bands like Pepper and the rapper MC Chris took it upon themselves to show that they could mess up and yet still interact with the crowd. Pepper even admitted in the middle of their act that they didn't have a set list and had people in the crowd shout out suggestions.

There was a major diversity of lifestyles present at the venue. 'Tweens and high schoolers sporting their best Hollister t-shirt walked along side 20- to 30-year-old punks wearing tattoos and multiple piercings.

The show itself is about the lifestyle and the music that makes the lifestyle, not just about the bands.